NEWS RELEASES
New Photographic Exhibition Opens at Horsham Museum
3rd May 2007
That well-known saying is never truer than in the stunning new photographic exhibition opening at Horsham Museum on 11th May, which focuses on Japan in the dying days of the Samurai.
The saying continues, “they do things differently there,” and as the photographs of Elizabeth Harvey show, even today that is also true. In this remarkable photographic exhibition Japan then and Japan now are brought together to reveal a place that is at the same time truly foreign and truly fascinating - a world captured by Horsham tourists more than a century apart.
Over 130 years ago Robert Henderson, a dynamic entrepreneurial businessman whose family had just bought Sedgwick Park travelled to see the far flung places of his business empire. He visited still feudal Japan where an Italian photographer Felici Beato had set up his studio in Edo selling to the intrepid tourist and traveller scenes of this strange world. Beato would employ ladies who hand coloured the Japanese prints to provide delicate washes to his images that would provide wonderment and awe back home.
Liz, a well-known local teacher, made a flying visit to Japan 133 years after Robert and the images she took of Japan reveal how that Country has modernised under western influence, but the exhibition shows how the past is very much present in the Japan of today. The iconic view of a Japanese temple, unaltered from the past, is still present in Tokyo of today whilst the image of a man weighed down by the back-breaking work of carrying enormous bundles of goods is contrasted by the railway guard in his pristine uniform.
Travelling In Camera: Japan, is the first of a series of annual exhibitions to span the next five years as the travels of Robert Henderson are mirrored and contrasted with travellers from Horsham today. It is an exhibition for those who are fascinated in how past and present worlds can be revealed and captured in a moment through the use of photography.
Travelling in Camera: Japan, runs from 11th May to 30th June 2007.
Horsham Museum is open Monday to Saturday 10am -5pm. Closed bank holidays.
For further information please contact Jeremy Knight, Curator.
Horsham Museum
9 Causeway, Horsham, West Sussex RH12 1HE
Tel: (01403) 254959 Fax: (01403) 282594
Email: museum@horsham.gov.uk
http://www.horshammuseum.org/